The New York Rangers fall in overtime to the Seattle Kraken

Yet again, the New York Rangers’ biggest rival to start the season is themselves. Despite fighting back from two different Kraken leads, the Rangers just could not beat a team that looked like they had the Rangers’ number. Whenever the Blueshirts looked like they were going to mount some offensive zone pressure at even strength, the Kraken would spring a partial or full-on breakaway.

Igor Shesterkin is the only reason New York was able to take a point from this game. If it wasn’t for the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, there is no way the Kraken to not continue to beat the breaks of this roster. Igor continues to be the Rangers’ savior when the Kraken looked dangerous every time they broke forward. If this continues, management is going to need to do something. The leaky defense tonight was deeply concerning.

One of the major positives to take from this game is that the powerplay was firing on all cylinders. New York went 2/4 on the man advantage killing off all 4 Seattle powerplays. Special teams were not the difference maker in this result, but it did allow the Rangers to grab a point that they should not have been anywhere near. After the first 20 minutes of play, this was entirely Seattle’s game and they deserved to win it, to be honest.

This is the start of a long western road trip that will take the Blueshirts through California from now. Getting a point is better than nothing but a win before taking on the Sharks, Kings, and Ducks would have been a better situation. None of those teams on their own are particularly threatening but with the inconsistency issues the Rangers have displayed, this was not a good result.

With another OT loss, the Rangers move to 8-6-4 on the year, and those 20 points are good enough to keep them in the first wild card in the East. This is despite teams behind having games in hand, better point percentages, and every chance to overtake the Blueshirts. This was a tough result. Hopefully, we get to see more of the Rangers’ consistency when they visit the Shark Tank.